Capnkirby

Camp KDE 2010 Wrapup

admin — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 00:23:02 +0000

Last week, the KDE Community had their yearly Americas event, this year in sunny San Diego. Despite California not living up to its sunny reputation, the attendees certainly had a good time.

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10 old-school Linux tools I refuse to let go of

admin — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 00:22:07 +0000

No matter which platform you prefer, there are probably a few old tools you just can’t part with.

Jack Wallen shares his Linux favorites.

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Too Many Linux Distributions?

admin — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 00:20:45 +0000

I had to deal with the “why are there so many Linux distributions? It’s too confusing!” whinging again over the weekend. I’ve decided to succumb to the tide, and agree – there are too many distributions, and we should immediately start reducing them, to a target of ONE TRUE LINUX DISTRIBUTION. No choice, no variations, no options, one kernel, one desktop, one window manager, one set of programs, utilities and applications. Period. We can call it “Windux” (since Lindows didn’t work out too well…).

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What should the GNOME Foundation accomplish in 2010?

admin — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 00:19:51 +0000

We’ve been working on the GNOME Foundation’s goals for 2010.

We distributed them for comment on the Foundation list.

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5 Firefox Add-ons For Better KDE Integration

admin — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 00:07:50 +0000

KDE’s default web browser is Konqueror, and many users love it for its speed, integration with KDE, and its host of features. Nevertheless, some sites do not perform as well as they do in Mozilla Firefox, and some users prefer the large number of available Firefox add-ons. Furthermore, users who move from Windows to Linux might prefer Firefox for its familiarity

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Hymera and commercial Linux

admin — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 00:07:10 +0000

For almost as long as there has been a Linux operating system, there have been companies trying to sell it. At the best of times, this is a tricky move. After all, as we know, Linux distributions are offered up by the dozens completely free of cost. In a lot of areas, open source advocates will burn CDs and DVDs and hand them out without charge. Looking at that sort of market, a market saturated with offerings of products gratis, it must take an optimistic mind to envision making a profit. Yet some have that vision, and a rare few turn it into a reality.

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Goofy Pro-Linux Story to Counter Pundit’s Awkward Efforts to Install Firefox

admin — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 00:06:35 +0000

Back last August, as soon as Firefox 3.5 was released, I installed it on Ubuntu 9.04 (I can never remember the animal names). I didn’t know how to do it, because I was a rank beginner. Still am. But back then I was about as rank a beginner as there is, because the first time I had ever so much as downloaded a program, even in Windows, was 4 months before that, in late April. In May, after reading a number of Ubuntu how-to books, I installed Ubuntu 8.10 and in July I replaced it with 9.04. In August I was dismayed to learn Ubuntu would not permit me to update Firefox automatically from 3.0.something to the brand-new 3.5

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Ubuntu Lucid 10.04 Alpha 2: First impressions on ‘difficult’ hardware

admin — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 00:05:54 +0000

My feelings for Ubuntu have run hot and cold since I first discovered the “Linux for human beings”-nicknamed reimagination of Debian during the Dapper (6.06) era.

I’ve had Ubuntu be the best distro on a given computer, sometimes it won’t even boot, I’ve had terrible trouble with Intel video, and upgrade-delivered changes have forced me to rewrite scripts on the fly. OK, it’s mostly Intel video, which for any user of Xorg over the past 2+ years has been an absolute nightmare.

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KDE vs. GNOME: Configuration and Admin Tools

admin — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 00:05:19 +0000

Linux has a strong do-it-yourself tradition. Although new users are transitioning rapidly to the desktop, that tradition remains. Even on the desktop, users expect to be able to administer their systems directly, and to work in an environment customized to their tastes and needs.

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You don’t need to ‘know’ Linux to use Linux

admin — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 23:43:22 +0000

Lately, I’ve been noticing stories about how to use Linux you need to know half-a-hundred Linux shell commands and the like. Ah, what century are you from? Today, if you can see a window and handle a mouse you’re ready to use Linux.

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An Android Developer’s Top 10 Gripes

admin — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 23:42:42 +0000

Put on your favorite self-pitying emo music and get ready for some developer frustration. I’m running down the top 10 things I love to hate about Android.

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Linux’s Future: Observations by a Linux user

admin — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 23:42:05 +0000

Having been inspired by the Neowin original two-part article, “Microsoft’s Future” by Max Majewski (part one and part two), I decided that a look at where Linux stands now, and what the future may hold for it.

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Zenwalk 6.2

admin — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 23:41:26 +0000

I downloaded and installed the “Core” version of Zenwalk in October 2009 after a rough experience upgrading from Xubuntu 9.04 to 9.10 and have used it almost daily since then, mostly for web browsing and other light tasks. I wanted to stick with the XFCE environment, because I like it and it runs on an older rig. The host machine is a Shuttle small form factor (a “toaster” PC) running an Athlon 64 2800+ CPU, Nforce 3 250 chipset, 1GB RAM, Radeon 9550 AGP graphics, and a 160GB harddrive.

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openSUSE 11.2 Gnome edition – Fantastic

admin — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 00:42:25 +0000

I’m such a plonker. I’ve only recently realized that all these years, I’ve never tried openSUSE with the Gnome desktop. And having just done that, I must say I regret the omission oh so badly, because openSUSE 11.2 with Gnome is simply fabulous. Even more so than the KDE edition.

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Examining SliTaz GNU/Linux

admin — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 00:41:53 +0000

When it was suggested to me that I review SliTaz GNU/Linux, my first reaction was less than enthusiastic: SliTaz, the one with the spider icon? I wasn’t sure if I was in for a creepy horror film experience or something cooked up by a developer who had read too many Marvel comic books. I decided to take a look at the project’s website and see what it had to offer and I was pleasantly surprised. Not just by the project’s claim to fit a modern desktop into a 30 MB image, though that in itself is impressive; not just the professional, friendly look, which is delightfully easy to navigate; not just by the wide variety of supported languages, there are six; but by the clear communication presented there. There is no fluff or cryptic messages on SliTaz’s website. It’s all clean, direct information which explains what the project is about on a level that both hardcore Linux veterans and newcomers will understand.

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Sidux 2009.04

admin — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 00:41:16 +0000

Sidux is a distro I’ve never tried before. Its a Debian unstable based system with a rolling release. Basically, its based upon Debian ‘unstable’, and instead of having one big release that everyone works on, it just updates certain packages everytime a new version is released. Arch Linux uses the same system.

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Android 2.1 spins up

admin — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 00:40:39 +0000

Google’s Nexus is the first phone to ship with the Android 2.1 operating system. Others will follow but until then, this is what you can expect.

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Fedora 12 — A ‘Must Upgrade’ and ‘Strongly Consider’ Distro

admin — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 00:40:06 +0000

Let’s face it — when it comes to choosing one Linux distribution over another, it often boils down to personal preference. You’ll find arguments for one being more user friendly or another being drop-dead simple to install, but in the final analysis the real reason is probably one or more of the following:

Previous experience

Upgrading from older version

Familiarity with company

Hardware support

User following

Available applications

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Linux Mint 8.0 review

admin — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 00:39:07 +0000

One of the most popular Linux distrubtions, Linux Mint’s latest edition was bound to attract plenty of interest. And rightly so, too.

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Blu-Ray Comes to Linux, Finally!

admin — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 23:54:58 +0000

For the Linux fans out there, today is a great day! Up until now, blu-ray playback support in Linux has been very complicated and quite an aggravating experience. First you would have to hope you had the right BD-ROM drive and that there was a hacked firmware for you to flash it with. Then you had to hope the correct AACS keys were out on the interwebs for the blu-ray disc you wanted to watch. Once you had the right drive and the right keys, you had to dump the entire blu-ray disc to your hard drive and play it from there

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